Your Home Will Smell Like Heaven with This Amazing Slow-Cooker Beef Stew Recipe

This Slow-Cooker Beef Stew recipe makes dinner easy. Whip these five ingredients together (Hint: They’re not what you’d expect!) and you’re done. Best recipe ever. Your family will be BEGGING for more. It’s literally comfort in a bowl. A big thanks to Reames® Frozen Homestyle Egg Noodles for sponsoring today’s dinner recipe.

I remember being a kid during Wisconsin winters like it was yesterday…

Looking down at my stinging, red wrists left exposed between my mittens and the edge of my coat sleeves. Finally deciding it was time to head home to get out of the cold for a while… There’d always be chunks of snow stuck to the inside edges of my mittens from wiping out and tumbling around on the sledding hill with my brothers. We’d trek away from “Killer Hill”—the most infamous, dreaded (and loved) icy incline in the neighborhood—and head home together as the sun began to fade behind us.

My brother would open the back door, and the delicious smell coming from the kitchen would warm up our frozen bodies a solid 20 degrees in mere seconds. We’d stand in the hallway stripping off soggy scarves and soaked snow pants, murmuring variations of…

It smells soooOOOooo good in here.”
“I’m hungry!”
“Yum—what are ya making?”
and “Mom, when’s dinner?”

…all at the same time. My mom would simply reply to our unintelligible, overlapping muttering with:

Hang up your coats and hats!”
“Put your boots on the mat!”
“Don’t get snow all over my wood floor!”

That about sums up my childhood… Lots of homemade food (and yelling).

There are certain winter staples that simply warm your soul. I admit, I feel cliché even saying that phrase to you, but it’s hard to articulate that feeling. There are just certain recipes that “take you home” no matter where you are or what your age. For me, Slow-Cooker Beef Stew with big, fat, homemade egg noodles is one of those winter staples.

The thing is, my childhood was FULL of amazing, authentic German recipes, often accompanied by homemade egg noodles.

Have you ever had homemade noodles? [holding my heart] So amazing. They make store-bought, dried egg noodles from a box feel like a joke.

Have you ever tried *making* homemade noodles? It’s so unbelievably challenging and time consuming. It makes me feel like a complete failure in the kitchen. I’ve never quite been able to master the art of the homemade noodle.

This Slow-Cooker Beef Stew recipe is super simple, too. All you’ll need to have on hand is: beef stew meat, a stick of butter, and au jus and ranch packets.

If you want your Slow-Cooker Beef Stew to be absolutely AMAZING, throw in a green pepper, too. This is my mother-in-law’s “secret roast ingredient.” Ironically, my husband hates green peppers, but he loves this recipe… The punchy flavor the pepper adds is terrific. However: If your family will turn their noses up if they see them in your stew, simply cut your pepper slices large and then remove them from the dish before serving.

Do some of the ingredients look familiar? This Slow-Cooker Beef Stew recipe is inspired by a traditional Mississippi roast. But, instead of a roast and pepperoncini peppers, we’re using stew meat and a green pepper. I love, love, love this variation!

STEP 1: Preheat your slow cooker. Simply pop it on high while you’re prepping the meat.

STEP 2: Heat 2–3 tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan on medium–high heat. Sear the stew meat for a nice, brown color, then add it to the slow cooker. Pour in 1/4 cup of water to the crock pot, too.

Quick tip: To ensure a nice, brown searing, it’s important the pan has been thoroughly preheated before adding your stew meat. Test the temp with a small piece of meat before adding it all in. You’ll know your pan is ready if it immediately elicits a fierce sizzle.

STEP 3: Sprinkle the ranch and au jus packets over the seared stew meat. Then place a whole stick of butter and some sliced peppers on top. Turn the temp down to low, and cook for 6–8 hours. Let the slow cooker do all the work.

Cooking tip: If you’re like me and the idea of making a proper roux scares you, go ahead and just use the stew juices with a store-bought gravy packet. That works perfectly every time, too!

So delicious.

Quick note: This beef stew recipe is salty-delicious, so it’s best served with a mile-high pile of mashed potatoes or a nice, thick noodle like Reames® Frozen Egg Noodles. It helps balance the flavor!

I serve this Slow-Cooker Beef Stew two different ways, depending on circumstances:

1. If it’s just the four of us eating dinner together (and we anticipate leftovers), I serve the noodles and the gravy-covered meat separate. With this approach, we can use the leftover stew in pot pies the next day or freeze the leftover beef stew for another week’s dinner altogether. (To serve, simply thaw, heat, and make a fresh batch of Reames® Frozen Egg Noodles. Dinner couldn’t get any easier!)

2. When we have guests or are hosting extended-family gatherings, we serve everything together. We throw the slow cooker on the warm setting, put out dishes and silverware, and create a buffet-style line for dinner. Everything stays warm and fresh when people come back for seconds! (And, trust me, they will come back…)

This simple, soul-warming stew can literally take a cold winter day from BLAH to AWESOME!

I know they’ll be walking in the door any minute with red cheeks (and wrists) announcing, “Yuh-uh-ummy” and “It smells SO GOOD in here, Mom.” And since our house has a dedicated mudroom entrance for them to strip off their wet outerwear worry-free, I’ll simply reply:

Come in the kitchen and have some hot stew with noodles to warm yourselves up, girls!”

Here’s to comfort food and the joy and warmth of being home with your loved ones this winter.

P.S. Which of your favorite family-recipes “takes you home”? I’d love if you’d share in the comments below or over here on Facebook.

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Reames®. This is a “sponsored post.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via a cash payment, gift, or something else of value to write it. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Oh my goodness, this recipe is so my husband! I am definitely adding it to the menu. We’re working with high cholesterol, do you think this will work with olive oil instead of butter?

A word of encouragement, You don’t need to be afraid of roux! I know it seems quite intimidating, but the only thing you need to know is whisk constantly to avoid it thickening only on the bottom. The trick to a good gravy is using wheat flour, gives it that hardiness along with the thickness. I throw in 1/4 c flour for every 1c liquid then add salt and pepper if needed. I imagine this recipe will not need any extra salt and pepper as the drippings will have plenty of flavor. 🙂

“OMGosh! What am I gonna cook?
Thank you, This was a hit…On this rainy Tuesday in Georgia. I doubled my recipe due to the fact of have 2 sets of teenage twins 3 of which are athletic boys. 🤷🏾
👉🏾There is the twist!!
“Not paying attention”
I added…
1/2 package Mushroom Gravy
(Thinking it was a pack of Ah Jus)
1cup of water.
Followed the recipe and Cooked for 8hrs….

Cooked a package of No Yolk eggs noodles extra broad (separately) according to package instructions.

Pour Beef stew (so tender) on top of noodles and garnished with parsley flakes..SOOO GOOD!!